異端寓言彙編 第 1 章 第 6/10 段

Having therefore added the explanation concerning the divine names, I shall pass on to those [remaining topics].

For since the addled, not knowing the meaning of the Hebrew names, supposed Adonai, Eloi, and Sabaoth to be different gods, I think it useful to show those who are ignorant what each of these signifies in the Greek tongue.

The name Eloth, then, is interpreted 'God';

and El, when smooth-breathed, likewise signifies 'God,' but when rough-breathed, 'the mighty one';

and Adonai [signifies] 'the Lord';

and 'Lord Sabaoth' is interpreted 'Lord of hosts,' or 'Lord of armies.'

For among the Greeks also, military formations are called 'powers.'

And Shaddai signifies 'the sufficient and powerful one';

This too was unutterable among the Hebrews.

But the Samaritans call it Iabai, not knowing the force of the word.

Not having understood these things, the deranged called them different gods.

But we shall proceed to the remaining parts of the treatise.

But it is necessary to demonstrate, before all things, that the maker of creation is not the one who, according to the myth of Valentinus, was formed from the passion of Achamoth, and was begotten, after thirty-five emanations of Aeons, from conversion and passion;

nor certain angels, as according to Basilides, and Cerinthus, and the others, over whom they say Iadabaoth rules;

nor, as according to the abominable Marcion, do we say that there is some other maker apart from the good one, but we have been taught, and we teach, that the God of all things, together with the only-begotten Word and the all-holy Spirit, created all things.

'By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all their powers by the breath of his mouth.' And elsewhere, having mentioned the visible and invisible creation, and having enjoined that the Maker be praised, he added:

'For he spoke, and they came to be; he commanded, and they were created.' And again:

'covering his upper chambers with waters.' And after a little:

'He who founded the earth upon its stability.' And again:

'To him who made the heavens in understanding, who established the earth upon the waters.' And before this, Moses the great teaches us more surely that he himself made heaven and earth together with the other elements;

that he himself created the nature of light, and adorned the heaven with luminaries, and the earth with groves, meadows, and cornfields; and he himself brought forth the kinds of living creatures, and gave the air as a dwelling to the birds, allotted the watery substance to swimming creatures, and the earth to cattle and wild beasts;

and how, after all things, he formed the nature of man.

And in harmony with this, all the prophets likewise teach us:

'He who made the heaven and fixed it, who established the earth and the things in it, who gives breath to the people upon it, and spirit to those who tread upon it.' And again:

'He who set up the heaven like a vault, and stretched it out like a tent.' And God himself says through him:

‘I stretched out the heaven alone.’ And the blessed Jeremiah spoke thus:

‘This is the God who made manifest the earth, and filled it with cattle and four-footed beasts,’

‘who sends forth the light and it goes, who called it and it obeyed him with trembling.’ But indeed I have no need of prophetic utterances—

for before the law and the prophets, nature itself taught men these things.

And that ancient Melchizedek spoke thus, blessing Abraham:

‘Blessed be Abram by God Most High, who created heaven and earth.’ And the patriarch himself said the same things to the men of Sodom:

‘I will stretch out my hand to God Most High, who created heaven and earth.’ And again, when Abraham sent his servant to seek a bride for his son:

‘for it is he,’ he says, ‘who alone stretched out the heaven, who walks upon the sea as upon the ground.’ And the very umpire of the contest teaches the victorious contestant much concerning creation—

But that we may not give occasion to those who do not accept the Old Scripture to contradict what has been said, let us pass over to the New, and let us show that it speaks in harmony with it:

for thus it will appear that these streams and those have one and the same source.

Let us then hear the divinely-inspired John, who says that all things came to be through the Word, and that of the things seen or conceived in creation, not one came to be apart from him.

‘For apart from him,’ it says, ‘not even one thing came to be.’ Let us also hear the divine Paul crying out, that ‘in him all things were created, whether visible or invisible.’ And again:

‘The God who made the world and all things in it, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, he himself giving to all life and breath and all things.’

‘And he made from one blood every nation of men to dwell upon all the face of the earth.’ And at Lystra, to those who wished to offer sacrifice, he said these things:

‘And we are men of like nature with you, bringing you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them.’ And what follows continues in the same sense.

...very many have held this opinion, and have said that God took the starting-points of his work of creation from pre-existing matter.

Come then, let us in this chapter too display the nobility of the church's doctrines.

Those men, then, as I said, say that all things were fashioned out of pre-existing matter, and, calling it co-eternal with God, they name God its cause;

yet they do not define it as evil, according to the impiety of Marcion and Mani;

for they consider it the greatest blasphemy to say that God is the maker of evil things.

And those men perhaps have some excuse, since they neither heard the words of the prophets nor had the divine apostles as guides, but entrusted the knowledge of things that are to reason alone.

But these men—what penalty worthy of their impiety could they pay, who enjoyed the divine Gospels, yet fled from their light and embraced the darkness like bats? They ought at least to have held fast the opinion of those philosophers, since they stopped their ears and were unwilling to hear the oracles of the divine Spirit—that is, to introduce matter, yet not call it evil.

And this too is a proof of the weakness of human reasoning.

For since every craft among men requires pre-existing matter—pottery requires clay, building requires stones and bricks, carpentry and shipbuilding require wood, weaving requires wool, tanning requires hides, painting and plastering require pigments, and, in short, every craft requires suitable materials—these foolish men supposed that God too is unable to create apart from matter, and did not perceive how great is the difference between man and God, and that it is not possible for the image to possess all that the archetype possesses, and that man, being an image, creates out of things that exist, but God creates both out of things that exist and out of things that do not exist.

And this the divine Scripture has clearly taught us.

For the Apostle says:

‘By faith we understand that the ages were framed by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that appear.’ And again:

and that he made heaven and earth and the other elements out of things that did not exist.

‘For in the beginning,’ it says, ‘God made heaven and earth.’ And likewise he brought light into being out of things that did not exist.

‘For God said,’ it says,

‘“Let there be light,” and there was light.’ But the firmament he brought forth out of things already made.

‘For he said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, and let it separate water from water.”’ And he commanded the seeds and the plants to sprout from the earth.

‘For he said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation, herbs yielding seed according to their kind and after their likeness, and fruit trees bearing fruit, whose seed is in it after its likeness and kind, upon the earth.”’ Thus also he brought forth the kinds of irrational animals:

from the waters, the creatures that fly through the air, and those that dwell in the waters, and those called amphibious.

‘For he said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living souls, and birds flying above the firmament of heaven.”’ And from the earth, the four-footed animals and creeping things:

‘For he says, “Let the earth bring forth a living soul, four-footed animals, creeping things, and cattle.”’ But man he made out of things that exist and out of things that do not exist.

For he fashioned the body, taking dust from the earth, but he created the soul out of things that did not exist.

For the soul is not, as the impious teaching of Marcion holds, consubstantial with the God who made it, but was created out of things that did not exist;

for he creates most easily whatever he wills.

For it is easy for him to bring forth many times more than these.

‘For,’ it says, ‘whatever the Lord willed, he did.’ It did not say ‘whatever he was able,’ but ‘whatever he willed.’

for his power is equal in measure to his will.

Whence he creates not only out of things that exist, but also out of things that do not exist.

Rightly, then, has the doctrine concerning matter been driven out from the doctrines of truth.

But let those who vilify creation, and who attempt to slander the all-harmonious work of creation, and who for this reason introduce the doctrine concerning matter, hear the divine oracles crying out:

‘God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.’ For nothing made by God is by nature evil.

But we shall set forth the discussion concerning this later.

For now, let us go briefly through the mythology of the Aeons.

And these senseless men did not perceive that ‘aeon’ is not some subsisting substance, but signifies a certain interval of time—at times infinite, when it is said of God, at times commensurate with creation, and at other times with human life.

‘Our lifetime is set in the light of your countenance.’ But concerning creation the Lord says:

‘From age to age you are’—instead of, ‘You have neither beginning nor end.’

And since ‘aeon’ signifies a certain interval, lest anyone should foolishly suppose that the God of all does not exist before the ages, the same Prophet said in another psalm:

...but he exists before all the ages—not these shameful ones fabled in pairs, but those which signify any interval whatsoever.

‘For he has spoken to us,’ it says, ‘in a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the ages.’ But ‘made’ does not signify the substance of the ages, but that no one is older than the God of all.

And in another passage it says:

‘Now to the King of the ages, incorruptible, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory unto the ages of ages.’

‘Amen.’ He is not teaching that there are certain subsistent aeons, but proclaiming the eternal kingdom of God.

And again the same Apostle:

‘Yet we speak wisdom among the mature, but a wisdom not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away;’

‘but we speak the hidden wisdom of God in a mystery, which God foreordained before the ages.’ But if the mystery of the dispensation is, by the divine definition, older than the ages, it is the height of impiety to call the God of all more recent than the ages.

And the prophet Isaiah also cries out:

‘The eternal God, who established the ends of the earth.’ And again:

‘From of old we have not heard, nor have our eyes seen a God besides you.’ Before the ages, then, is God, the creator of all things.

As for the angels, we neither deify them after the manner of the Greek poets and philosophers, nor do we divide their incorporeal nature into female and male, nor do we impute licentious unions to the invisible powers;

nor, according to the myths of the heretics, do we define them as makers of creation, nor indeed do we say that they are co-eternal with the God of all.

For to men, the female is useful for the increase of the race.

For foreseeing this, the God of all fashioned this nature thus.

‘Increase, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it.’ For since death plunders the nature of men, and like some reaper cuts down not only the aged but also the young;

human nature necessarily needed those who till and sow, and who bring in other ears of grain in place of those cut down, and who by cultivation overcome the hands of the reaper.

But for the immortal nature, the division into sexes is superfluous;

For they need no increase, since they suffer no diminution, nor, being incorporeal, do they need bodily union.

And of this Holy Scripture is teacher.

For God did not create only two angels in the beginning, as he did with men, but brought forth as many myriads as he willed.

For a nature free from corruption has no need of increase.

But men, having a mortal body and being subject to death, necessarily require the female.

Let none of those who love pleasure, out of ignorance, bring an accusation against the angels, taking as an occasion for blasphemy what was recorded by the all-wise Moses:

that 'the sons of God, seeing that the daughters of men were fair, took wives for themselves from among them.'

For it is the height of madness to attribute to angels the licentiousness of men.

And the line of Cain was accursed, while that of Seth was devoted to piety.

For Enos, his son, hoped to call upon the name of the Lord God.

Hence those born from him, being called sons of God, fled from intermarriage with the race of Cain.

But when many years had passed, the descendants of the pious, beholding the delightful daughters of that race, were overcome by their beauty, transgressed their ancestral law, and embraced kinship by marriage with them.

Then this intermarriage brought in wickedness.

Whenever, then, we hear divine Scripture saying:

'The sons of God went in to the daughters of men,' let us not accuse the incorporeal angels;

for it was men who dared this transgression, though they were called sons of God.

And that this is so, the God of all himself bears witness, saying thus:

'My Spirit shall not remain among these men forever, because they are flesh.' And again the historian says:

'And the Lord saw the earth, and it was corrupted, for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth.' And to Noah the God of all said:

'Behold, I am about to destroy all flesh.' And having commanded him to build an ark, he added:

'For I have found you righteous in this generation.' Now the lawgiver of righteousness would not, had angels sinned, have punished men instead — and not ten, or twenty, or a hundred men, but countless myriads.

Neither for the sake of increase, then, nor for union, does the nature of angels have need of the female.

And that there are many myriads of angels, Holy Scripture teaches:

'For thousand thousands,' it says, 'ministered to him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him.' Now the ministry of the angels is hymnody.

For concerning the Seraphim the blessed Isaiah says that they cried out and said, 'Holy, holy, holy, Lord of Sabaoth;

heaven and earth are full of his glory.' And concerning the Cherubim the divine Ezekiel said, as he heard them saying:

'Blessed be the glory of the Lord from his place.' And they do not only sing hymns, but also minister in the divine dispensations.

This the all-wise Paul taught us, saying:

'Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?' And the Lord himself said in the holy Gospels:

'See that you do not despise one of these little ones, the least of those who believe in me';

or rather, it was not he himself, but the angel conversing with him, who said it.

'For the prince of the Persians,' he says, 'stood against me.' And he also mentions the prince of the Greeks, adding that no one else assisted him when he interceded with God on behalf of the freedom of the Jews, except Michael their prince.

And the great Moses also said in his song:

We believe that the angels were made by the God of all;

'for he spoke, and they came to be;

he commanded, and they were created.' And again:

'Who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.' And the three youths in the furnace, blessing God, called all creation into fellowship of their hymn, and the angels first of all.

Now the prelude of their hymn runs thus:

'Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord;

sing praise to him, and exalt him above all forever.' Then immediately they add:

'Bless the Lord, you angels of the Lord'; teaching that these too are part of the divine works.

But the divine Apostle instructed us in this yet more clearly.

For having mentioned our Lord Jesus Christ, he added:

'For in him were created all things in the heavens and upon the earth, whether visible or invisible.' And leaving aside as evident the things that are seen, he names the ranks of the invisible things:

'whether thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers, all things were created through him and for him.' This is what we have been taught to hold concerning the angels.

Concerning the Devil and the Demons

As for the devil and the demons under him, we say — contrary to the myths of Marcion, Cerdo, and Mani — that they are not uncreated.

For if they were uncreated, then they would be of equal honor with the God of all;

and if of equal honor, clearly also of equal power;

and if of equal power, how can we say that they were created by the God of all? For how could those who received such a nature from the beginning be justly punished? But that they will indeed be punished, the Lord declared expressly to those on his left:

'Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.' And the demons themselves know this clearly;

'What have we to do with you, Son of the Most High God? Have you come to torment us before the time?' And again:

'I adjure you, do not torment me.' That they will indeed be punished, then, we have been clearly taught.

Let us now consider whether they will justly suffer this, having received such a nature from their maker.

For how could the maker of evil rightly be called good, and how could he be just who punishes a nature that is unable to do any good, but is fettered by the bonds of evil? But we know the God of all to be just, and the fountain of righteousness;

and we know the good God, whom all right-minded men name as such, to be the maker of good things.

He did not, then, create a nature that is unable to do any good, but travails with evil alone against its will.

If, then, God created no evil nature — for as a good maker he is the maker of good things — and does not permit himself to punish unjustly — for he is just and a lawgiver of righteousness — yet he does punish the devil and those under him, then it is by choice that the devil and those of his company are evil.

For just as God, being good, created man good from the beginning, and by their own free choice some preserved unspoiled the nature they had received;

while others inclined toward the worse, corrupted the divine features within them, and rendered those made in God's likeness beast-like;

and this the divine Apostle made clear, when legislating concerning the ordination of a bishop:

And writing to the Ephesians also, he indicated that before he turned to the worse, he had been entrusted with the governance of the air.

'According to the ruler of the power of the air,' he says, 'the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience.' Having fallen from his former rank, he now has as his servants those who oppose God.

And the Lord also said in the holy Gospels:

'I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.' And in another passage: 'He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth.' This indicates that, having turned aside from the truth, he chose the things contrary to the truth.

And the blessed prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel likewise employ similar figures of speech.

'I will set my throne above the stars, and I will be like the Most High, and I will seize the world as a nest, and take it up as forsaken eggs.' And Ezekiel, through the figure of the prince of Tyre, hints at the apostate ruler who was at work in him.

'Thus says the Lord GOD:

You are the seal of likeness, full of wisdom, and a crown of beauty; you were in the delight of the paradise of God; you were clothed with every precious stone.' Then, having enumerated the kinds of stones, he added:

'From the day you were created, you were with the cherub, anointed by God who dwells there, and I set you on the holy mountain of God.'

You were born in the midst of fiery stones; you walked blameless in your days, from the day you were created, until iniquities were found in you.

For from the abundance of your trafficking you filled your storehouses with iniquity, and you sinned, and were wounded;

The overshadowing cherub brought you down from the mountain of God, from the midst of the fiery stones.

Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty.

"this shall devour you." This prophetic word showed that the devil, though made good from the beginning, willingly received the inclination toward the worse, and increased his wickedness through evil devisings.

For he called the "trafficking" and the "trading" the devisings of wickedness.

He held this one up as an example, having exposed his weakness, and commanded him to be trodden underfoot by those who once worshipped

the enemy. And one can find very many other things besides, by which it is easy to learn that the devil, though created good, willingly turned aside to wickedness.

And the punishment threatened against him suffices to show the voluntary character of his wickedness.

For it is not proper to a just God to punish one who became wicked by necessity.

As for man, we say that he was formed, not by certain angels according to the myths of Basilides and Cerinthus, nor by Ialdabaoth according to the folly of the Sethians, nor indeed by Saklas according to the madness of Mani;

but by the divine and all-holy Trinity, which fashioned all things.

For we have heard the divine Scripture saying, as the God of all declared:

"Your hands", it says, "made me, and fashioned me;"

"give me understanding, that I may learn your commandments." By the hands of God we understand, not certain bodily members, but his creative power.

For the incorporeal and uncircumscribed nature is not composite, as Audius's derangement of mind holds, but simple, formless, shapeless, and comprehending all things.

Hearing, then, the Mosaic narrative relate that God took dust from the earth and formed man, we seek out the meaning of the letter, and understand the particular disposition which the God of all bears toward human nature.

For the great prophet, in showing this,

said that God of all made the other things by a word, but formed man with his hands.

Neither do we understand the "command" in those cases to be an utterance, but rather purpose and will;

nor here do we understand the forming to be labor of bodily hands, but rather the greater care bestowed upon this work.

For just as now, when he wills it, the embryo is fashioned in the womb, and nature follows the limits laid down for it by him from the beginning, so then, when he willed it, a human body was compacted from the earth, and the clay became flesh, and blood, and skin, and fat, and sinews, and veins, and arteries, and brain, and marrow, and the supports of the bones, and the coats of the eyes, and the clarity of the pupil, and the spiral passages of the ears, and the perception of smells, and the rational instrument of the mouth, in which the teeth fulfill the office of strings, the tongue imitates the plectrum, and the mind plays the part of the musician's right hand.

But who is able worthily to marvel at the formation of this living creature, which many others attempt to slander, not least the successors of Mani? For this reason they say that it was not God who formed this, but Saklas, the ruler of matter.

But among the Greeks, the wise men — Socrates, and Hippocrates, and Plato, and Xenophon, and Aristotle, and Galen, and countless others — greatly admire the harmony of the human body, marvel at the use of each part, and confess that praising discourse is overcome by the wisdom of the master craftsman of all things, as observed in this living creature.

By so much do these men — who neither received prophetic cultivation nor enjoyed apostolic guidance, but entrusted the knowledge of divine things to reason alone — surpass the ill-named heretics.

And I say this, not defending the polytheistic error of the so-called philosophers, but showing that those who pride themselves on the name of Christ are more impious than not only the philosophers, but even the demons.

...seem pleasant, but also in the things reckoned to be grievous.

But this is not yet to be discussed;

for the discourse ought to preserve the coherence of its arrangement.

We say, then, that the body was formed from the four elements,

for it has heat from fire, cold from air, dryness from earth, and moisture from water.

But the soul, we say, is simple, rational, and immortal, yet it does not pre-exist the body.

For Pythagoras, and Plato, and Plotinus, and those of his school, agreeing that souls are immortal, said that these pre-exist bodies, and that there is a certain multitude of innumerable souls, and that those which transgress are sent down into bodies, so that, purified by such discipline, they might return again to their own place;

but those which, even within bodies, embraced a lawless life, are sent down into irrational animals;

the bitter and venomous into reptiles, the rapacious into wolves, the bold into lions, and the crafty into foxes;

and they fashioned certain such foolish myths as these.

They say that the Peripatetics even take away the immortality of souls by their reasoning.

But the wisest of physicians called the good temperament of the body "soul", having derived this opinion from the afflictions that befall the body — epilepsy, I mean, and apoplexy, and phrenitis.

For since each of these afflictions maims the rational faculty and renders it useless, they supposed that the good temperament of the body is the soul.

But they ought to have observed that the lyre-player too, when the lyre is not well tuned, does not display his own skill.

For strings, whether overstretched or grown slack, mar the harmony.

And if some of them are even cut through, they render the musician wholly idle.

This can be seen also in the case of flutes, and other instruments.

Thus a leaky ship, or one built contrary to the principles of the craft, impairs the skill of the helmsman.

And lame horses, or those slow by nature, and moreover the defects of chariots, harm the charioteers.

So indeed certain bodily afflictions do not permit the soul to display the activity of the rational faculty.

But when the affliction occurs in the tongue, speech is checked;